World-famous Cake Picnic returns to Melbourne – and the theme is Australiana

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The 1600-person potluck is back for its second year at the 2027 Melbourne Food and Wine Festival, which is also welcoming a Netflix star and a Hong Kong restaurant named among the…

1600 cakes, an LA diner frequented by Hollywood celebrities, and a rare opportunity to enjoy a long lunch by a coveted two-hatted restaurant. These are just a few of our favourite additions to next year’s bumper Melbourne Food and Wine Festival program.

The festival is slated to be one of the biggest in its 33 years running, with 200 events taking place across both Melbourne and regional Victoria. It’s also spanning 17 days – from March 5 to 21 – instead of the usual 10, meaning a whole extra week of additional eating and drinking.

Back for more baking fun is the San Francisco-born Cake Picnic, a mega 1600-person cake swap that debuted in Melbourne at this year’s festival in March. The “no cake, no entry” policy remains, but an additional “edible Australiana” theme – an idea of cake queen and guest creative director Katherine Sabbath – is likely to spark even more creativity among eager bakers (this year featured creations such as a spiced chocolate cake with passionfruit tahini cream in the shape of an anchovy tin).

“Is it a recreation of Kylie Minogue’s appearance at the Sydney 2000 Olympics in cake form? Is it Uluru done in ganache? Or is it just Australian traditional cakes?,” says the festival’s creative director Pat Nourse. “That’s what I want to see.”

The large-scale potluck is also moving from Kings Domain to the grounds of South Yarra’s Como House and Gardens, and will run across two sessions of 800 cakes to allow more room for guests to roam and load up on spongy slices.

As always, the festival will kick off with the 1600-person World’s Longest Lunch, this year hosted by Brigitte Hafner of Red Hill’s two-hatted farm-to-table fine diner Tedesca Osteria, winner of the 2026 Age Good Food Guide Regional Restaurant of the Year award. Hafner will be cooking a three-course meal starring produce her team has been growing at the Tedesca farm specifically for the event over the past six months.

Meanwhile, some major Hollywood star power is fuelling this year’s program…

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